Women's Hoops Guru

By Mel Greenberg

The Guru returns after spending a day extended in the Hartford area using innovative technological to file some stories for print in Wednesday's editions.

It is interesting how fast the bracketologists and several scribes quickly yanked Rutgers' looming NCAA tournament No. 1 seed away from the Scarlet Knights and awarded it to Maryland following the blowout loss to Connecticut.

True, the Rutgers hold got a little looser but it might be too soon to be sending coach C. Vivian Stringer's charges down to line two on the bracket, where things might be either interesting or a non-factor depending on who would be the No.1 seed in the same column.

One wonders if the same would be said of UConn had the result gone in the opposite direction.

In recent projections, one of the two ACC powers -- Maryland or North Carolina -- was going to get a No. 1 if they both reached the title game this weekend.

However, when body of work comes into play, Rutgers could hang on the top row, although it's "S" curve placement might be a notch lower.

There's a history over the years of Tennessee getting shocked in the SEC tournament and still holding its No. 1 seed when the TV lights turned on to present the 64-team draw.

But what's really important is a factor that doesn't get talked much about because it is not public, but, as we learned during last month's mock committee bracket session at NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis, it carries a lot of weight.

It's called the regional advisory ranking system, to coin a phrase.

Several times during the stretch drive of the season, the national commitee breaks into four regional groups and then are each joined by coaches appointed to keep an eye on the local action.

A ranking is then made of all the potential NCAA contenders, including projected automatic winners in low-profile conferences.

The East, because of the size of the area, is the largest and usually has more teams than elsewhere when it comes to upper seeding.

This year, a particular dynamic is in play -- most of the No. 1 seeds being discussed come from the East -- Connecticut, Rutgers,. Maryland, and North Carolina.

The Mideast could be interesting because of LSU wins the SEC, the Tigers could end up being ranked ahead of Tennessee.

The Midwest's best team -- Baylor? Oklahoma? will not be No. 1 worthy. Nor will the West's best team, which is Stanford. In fact, the only reason the West will have any length is all the conference winners will be part of the group.

The NCAA staff told us the ranking is important because the coaches are the one in the battle lines day-to-day either playing the NCAA hopefuls or seeing them appear on scouting tapes in their own game preparations.

So, if Rutgers gets to the Big East title game, and manages to cancel out the West Virginia loss along the way if the opportunity arises, it could be that the ranking will go 1-2 to UConn and Rutgers, the order perhaps determined by the winner of the conference championship.

And if that's the case, they might both still be holding No. 1s, although Connecticut's grip has gotten tighter.

Incidentally, former Rutgers player Tudy Reed was named the Atlantic Ten's sixth player winner Wednesday when the conference's postseason awards were announced.

Inside Guru: Technology on the Fly

If you read the print edition story at Philly.com, you were fed an fascinating account of some wild hours experienced by Villanova Monday night after the Wildcats' loss at Louisville during which coach Harry Perretta's team thought the season had ended and then learned there was still life.

The reason involved an elaborate series of tie-breakers to break a three-way logjam in 11th place among South Florida, Villanova, and Georgetown, which had erroneously declared a clinched berth after the Hoyas' win on Saturday.

Well, here's the way it unfolded onto the Guru's attention and then eventually found its way onto, and wasn't the Guru surprised, page one of Wednesday's sports section.

The Guru left the XL Center in Hartford late Monday night believing that Villanova's season was over based on some quick conversations over the weekend involving what was required to gain the field.

Then about 1 a.m. as the Guru dined on a late-night snack in a nearby diner, a noise out of the blackberry heralded an email arrival with the Big East bracket.

As the Guru opened the attachment, the first thing to strike his vision was the opening game: Villanova vs. Pittsburgh.

A few minutes later, Connnecticut's SID Randy Press, who was wide awake updating his Huskies notes, confirmed to the Guru that it took a lot of time to get the ties broken, but, yes, Villanova was in the field.

The following morning as the Guru was about to check out of his hotel to head South, he mentioned Villanova's deal to an editor, who quickly gotten fascinated and wanted the play-by-play.

But with no hotel workstation available any longer to operate, here's how the coverage got done on the fly.

The Guru, by good timing, reached the Villanova contingent on the team bus heading back from the airport in Philly and interviewed some of the players about their emotions using the speaker phone on the blackberry and a microcasette recorder to tape the conversation.

A few minutes later, the same procedure was used to talk to Perretta, who checked in from Ohio where he had gone to recruit after the loss.

Once the information was in hand, the Guru found a shopping mall that contained a FedEx center that had a place to use the new laptop. Transmission was simplified because on the other side of the wall was a Penera Bread restaurant, which has free wifi.

The signal was strong enough to make contact with the laptop and thus send the story into the home office.

Ironically, there's a bit of amusement in the Pittsburgh-Villanova matchup to open the entire Big East deal Saturday at noon.

On Saturday, after Villanova lost to Marquette at home, the Wildcats needed help from Pittsburgh, among others, to make the field. But South Florida rallied to beat Pitt by a point.

Then on Monday night, the Panthers trounced Georgetown to put Villanova in position to gain the 12th and final spot.

So the reward for all this is now Pitt has to play the Wildcats, the team that drives everyone daffy with Perretta's patient execution.

This is not the first time, Villanova has gone through the experience of Monday night and Pitt was the team involved in a previous episode years ago.

It went like this: A very bad Panthers team upset Villanova in the final game of the regular season and then a week later, bounced the Wildcats out of the Big East field in the first round.

Believing their NCAA opportunities had imploded, Perretta let the team take off from spring break.

Lo and behold, a week later the NCAA bracket gets announced and out of nowhere, Villanova is on the board.

Apparently, the committee got caught in a situation where it still needed teams and at that point in the deliberation, Villanova had enough wins over teams in the field and teams tryiing to get in the field to get selected as an at-large entry.

Somehow, everyone was found to quickly return to campus. Villanova also got another break because the Wildcats got to host the higher-seeded North Carolina State team because of a conflict involving the Wolfpack's arena.

The game went to the wire before North Carolina ultimately escaped.

The Conference Wars Begin: Thursday's action.

Here's a look at the conference slate on the first day of action:

ACC: Georgia Tech vs. Miami -- The Yellowjackets could use a win to strengthen their NCAA cause, which isn't in terrible shape .N.C. State vs. Clemson; Boston College vs.Va.Tech; Florida State vs.Wake Forest - N.C. State, Boston College, and Florida State all need wins to advance their cause.

Big Ten: Michigan vs. Penn State -- The Nittany Lions, who have lost 11 straight, could get a little feel-good attitude in the offseason with an upset of Michigan, which could ruin the Wolverines' hopes for an NCAA bid.; Indiana vs. Northwestern vs. Indiana is an opportunity to become a Cinderella for the winner if that winner takes the Big Ten title; Wisconsin vs. Illinois -- The same goes here as the previous comment, although the Illini could oplay the role, but so could the Badgers.

Conference USA -- The top four have seeds and thus, no compelling storylines yet.

Metro Atlantic - Canisius meets Niagara for the right to meet MAAC heavyweight Marist in the next round.

Southeastern Conference - Florida needs to beat South Carolina to keep hopes alive, which Auburn needs to do likewise with Arkansas. Georgia is most likely a lock, but it's seed situation will suffer with a loss to Alabama.

West Coast - Big game is Gonzaga vs. Pepperdine since bubble teams elsewhere need the Zags to win the tournament and avoid an extra team out of here.

-- Mel